FTC orders Genshin Impact's developer to block young teens from making in-game purchases

Kids and younger teens might soon be unable to play Genshin Impact’s gachas. The developer behind the game has agreed to block players under 16 years old from making in-game purchases without parental consent in order to settle a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission. It has also agreed to pay a $20 million penalty. Samuel Levine, the director of FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said “Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning.”

The developer’s marketing actively targeted children, the commission said in its complaint, and the company also violated COPPA by collecting personal info from kids under 13. HoYoverse, the developer’s US entity, allegedly deceives players “about the odds of winning” its rarer loot box prizes and uses a confusing virtual currency system that’s unfair to kids and younger teens. The FTC says this misleads players on how much they actually have to spend to be able to get rarer prizes. Genshin Impact uses a gacha system instead of a traditional loot box mechanic, wherein players can “pull” on banners to win a random item or character. 

Under the FTC’s proposed order, it wants to prohibit Genshin Impact from selling loot boxes using virtual currency unless it also provides an option to purchase them directly with real money. It wants to prohibit the developer from misrepresenting loot box odds and processes, and it wants to require the company to disclose gachas’ odds and the virtual currency exchange rate. The commission wants to order HoYoverse to delete personal information collected from kids until 13 unless it was obtained with parental consent, as well. A federal judge still has to approve the proposed order with all these requirements, though, so they won’t be enforced immediately. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ftc-orders-genshin-impacts-developer-to-block-young-teens-from-making-in-game-purchases-221532729.html?src=rss

Perplexity AI has reportedly submitted an 11th-hour bid to save TikTok in the US

Just one day before TikTok is expected to shut down in the US, startup Perplexity AI has submitted a bid to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance proposing a merger that would allow it to continue operating, CNBC reports. Citing an anonymous source, CNBC reports that the proposed merger would “create a new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US and New Capital Partners.” It comes after the Supreme Court on Friday ruled unanimously to uphold a law that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or it will be banned in the US. The company has so far resisted the idea of a sale.

According to CNBC’s source, Perplexity is hoping a merger rather than a sale will be more appealing to ByteDance. “The new structure would allow for most of ByteDance’s existing investors to retain their equity stakes and would bring more video to Perplexity,” CNBC reports. If ByteDance were to accept the proposal, there’s a chance the company would be given a 90-day extension by Trump to work out a deal, which he told NBC News‘ Kristen Welker that he would “most likely” do when he takes office on Monday. But there is as yet no indication that ByteDance will go this route.

Despite rampant speculation about potential buyers, TikTok said it will “be forced to go dark on January 19” when the law takes effect unless “the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement.” The outgoing administration, however, reportedly says it’s leaving all that for the Trump team to deal with. Per MSNBC, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s claim about shutting down “a stunt,” and said “we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday.”

“We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration,” Jean-Pierre said, according to MSNBC. “So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/perplexity-ai-has-reportedly-submitted-an-11th-hour-bid-to-save-tiktok-in-the-us-215012514.html?src=rss

Instagram swoops in with 3-minute Reels and rectangular profile grids as the TikTok ban gets real

Instagram is rolling out a bunch of changes this weekend that will conveniently make it look a lot more like TikTok, which could go dark in the US on Sunday now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the law banning the app if parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it. Those changes include extending Reels to three minutes long and changing the longstanding square grid on your profile to a rectangular layout, as Adam Mosseri announced in an Instagram post and on his Story, respectively. Considering how some users have crafted a specific look for their pages around the square grid, the latter isn’t likely to go over well with everyone.

Nor is the third thing: there’s now a tab in your Reels feed that shows you videos your friends have liked or added Notes to, Mosseri shared on Threads. Which means, of course, that your friends can more easily see what you’ve been liking and interacting with, too. Didn’t we already agree this was kind of invasive back when Instagram had — and eventually removed — a whole feed dedicated to seeing the activity of the people you follow? In any case, the changes have already begun rolling out. You’ll now see a button showing your friends’ activity at the top right of the Reels tab, which will bring you to the new feed.

Addressing the switch from the square grid in his Stories, Mosserri chalked it up to aligning with users’ posting habits. “I know some of you really like your squares, and square photos are kind of the heritage of Instagram, but at this point most of what’s uploaded — both photos and videos — are vertical in their orientation, so portrait versus landscape or square, and it just is a bummer to overly crop them,” he said. “So I know it’s a change, I know it’s a bit of a pain, but I think it’s a transitional pain.” He went on to say, “I think that people will over the long run be excited” not to have their posts appear “aggressively cropped.”

Instagram already had offered a somewhat TikTok-like view of users’ profiles under the Reels tab, but the latest move gives photos on the main grid the rectangular treatment too (only on the grid though, they’ll expand to normal size when you click them individually). On making Reels longer, Mosseri said in a separate post that while Instagram has long focused on short-form video, “we’ve heard the feedback that this is just too short for those who want to share longer stories.” Instagram previously only allowed Reels of up to 90-seconds long, though you could work around this by sharing a longer video as a non-Reel post.

TikTok, which also began with a focus on short-form, extended its post length to three minutes several years ago, and later upped this to 10 minutes in 2022. If TikTok really does shut down, users are going to be looking for a new home for that type of content.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/instagram-swoops-in-with-3-minute-reels-and-rectangular-profile-grids-as-the-tiktok-ban-gets-real-201316339.html?src=rss

Bang & Olufsen's new earbuds with ‘replaceable batteries’ don’t seem to be very repairable

Bang & Olufsen announced its new $499 premium earbuds, the Beoplay Eleven, back in November, touting among other things their replaceable batteries “for sustainability” and alignment with the EU’s impending device repairability requirements. But an iFixit teardown tells a more complicated story about actually replacing those batteries, describing the process of just getting the case open as “a very onerous and labor intensive task… even for a trained technician.” And inside, the battery is affixed to other components in ways that require heat to remove it, which in itself wouldn’t comply with the EU’s upcoming rules. Given all the work involved, the earbuds scored an abysmal 1/10 on iFixit’s repairability scorecard.

Bang & Olufsen said the earbuds’ design “allows for battery replacement by service,” which, as iFixit notes, suggests that this isn’t meant to be a repair you can do yourself at home. It did ultimately turn out to be possible to take one of the earbuds apart without damaging any of the electronics inside, but the laborious teardown calls into question how feasible — and sustainable — battery replacement would be even when carried out at a B&O service center. After opening up the case and finding “a plastic weld mark barring access to the battery,” iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari notes in the video that, “at a minimum, any battery replacement service would need to dispose of the plastic housing completely.”

“I’d love to see B&O’s process for changing these batteries out,” Mokhtari wrote in the blog post. “I’m willing to bet it’s neither cheap nor waste-free but I would love to be proven wrong.” The teardown also revealed the Beoplay Eleven to be a “carbon copy” of the 2022 Beoplay EX internally. “Even the peel-away film on the rear of each earbud says ‘Beoplay EX’ — not ‘Beoplay Eleven,’” Mokhtari wrote. Yikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/bang-and-olufsens-new-earbuds-with-replaceable-batteries-dont-seem-to-be-very-repairable-174949894.html?src=rss

Bang & Olufsen's new earbuds with ‘replaceable batteries’ don’t seem to be very repairable

Bang & Olufsen announced its new $499 premium earbuds, the Beoplay Eleven, back in November, touting among other things their replaceable batteries “for sustainability” and alignment with the EU’s impending device repairability requirements. But an iFixit teardown tells a more complicated story about actually replacing those batteries, describing the process of just getting the case open as “a very onerous and labor intensive task… even for a trained technician.” And inside, the battery is affixed to other components in ways that require heat to remove it, which in itself wouldn’t comply with the EU’s upcoming rules. Given all the work involved, the earbuds scored an abysmal 1/10 on iFixit’s repairability scorecard.

Bang & Olufsen said the earbuds’ design “allows for battery replacement by service,” which, as iFixit notes, suggests that this isn’t meant to be a repair you can do yourself at home. It did ultimately turn out to be possible to take one of the earbuds apart without damaging any of the electronics inside, but the laborious teardown calls into question how feasible — and sustainable — battery replacement would be even when carried out at a B&O service center. After opening up the case and finding “a plastic weld mark barring access to the battery,” iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari notes in the video that, “at a minimum, any battery replacement service would need to dispose of the plastic housing completely.”

“I’d love to see B&O’s process for changing these batteries out,” Mokhtari wrote in the blog post. “I’m willing to bet it’s neither cheap nor waste-free but I would love to be proven wrong.” The teardown also revealed the Beoplay Eleven to be a “carbon copy” of the 2022 Beoplay EX internally. “Even the peel-away film on the rear of each earbud says ‘Beoplay EX’ — not ‘Beoplay Eleven,’” Mokhtari wrote. Yikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/bang-and-olufsens-new-earbuds-with-replaceable-batteries-dont-seem-to-be-very-repairable-174949894.html?src=rss

Apple's AirPods Max with USB-C drop to their lowest price yet

If you’ve been waiting for a deal on Apple’s flagship AirPods Max, now is the time to buy a pair. Amazon has discounted the USB-C model to $449, or 18 percent off their suggested $549 price. The retailer doesn’t have every color available, but all those in stock — blue, midnight, orange and purple — are part of the promotion.

The AirPods Max need no introduction, but it’s worth taking a moment to consider if they make sense to buy in 2025. No doubt, they sound great and offer tight integration with other Apple devices, but if you don’t count the minor refresh Apple made this past September, the AirPods Max are now more than four years old. In that time, the competition has only gotten better; in fact, the AirPods Max aren’t even on Engadget’s list of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy in 2025. Even taking into account their current $100 discount, there are options like the Sony WH-1000XM5 that are better and cheaper.

Still, there’s a case to be made for the AirPods Max, particularly for someone deeply invested in Apple’s ecosystem. As easy as Sony’s app makes pairing, the process is still nowhere near as easy and seamless as Apple’s native integration. If you’re a frequent Siri user, the AirPods Max win there too. Just keep in mind Apple is likely to release a proper update to the AirPods Max later this year.

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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apples-airpods-max-with-usb-c-drop-to-their-lowest-price-yet-154204100.html?src=rss

China-linked hackers accessed over 400 US Treasury computers, including Janet Yellen's

The US Treasury Department announced in a letter back in December that it had been the victim of a security breach, attributing it to a “China state-sponsored Advanced Persistent Threat actor.” Now we know more about the extent of the hack, thanks to reporting by Bloomberg.

The hacking group got into more than 400 laptop and desktop computers, many of which were linked to senior leaders focused on “sanctions, international affairs and intelligence.” They also accessed employee usernames and passwords, in addition to more than 3,000 files on unclassified personal computers. These documents included travel data, organizational charts, sanction materials and foreign investment metrics.

An agency report indicates that the perpetrators likely stole a whole lot of this data, but were unable to get into the Treasury’s classified or email systems. Subsequent reporting, also from Bloomberg, indicates around 50 classified files were stolen from the computer of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. The hackers also accessed materials regarding investigations run by the Committee on Foreign Investment. This committee reviews security implications surrounding real estate purchases and foreign investments in the US.

The agency report also notes that there wasn’t any evidence to suggest that the hackers tried to hide in the Treasury’s systems for the purpose of long-term intelligence gathering, and they didn’t leave behind any malware.

Investigators have attributed the intrusion to a notorious Chinese state-sponsored hacking group called Silk Typhoon, Halfnium or UNC5221. It has been suggested that they performed the hack outside of normal working hours to avoid detection. Last month, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry called the accusation that the attack was state-sponsored “unwarranted and groundless.”

Counterintelligence officials are still in the midst of a “comprehensive damage assessment” but Treasury employees are set to brief the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on the matter this week.

Update, January 17 2025, 10:47AM ET: This story has been updated to include additional reporting.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/china-linked-hackers-accessed-over-400-us-treasury-computers-182420268.html?src=rss

Amazon puts its drone deliveries on hold following two crash incidents

Amazon’s drones won’t be making any deliveries in the foreseeable future. According to Bloomberg, the company has paused all commercial drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona after a previously undisclosed event in which two of Amazon’s MK30 drones had crashed at the Pendleton, Oregon airport it uses for testing. MK30 is the company’s next-gen drone model, which is lighter and has a longer range than its predecessor, the MK27. The incidents took place in December, with one of the drones even catching fire after it fell. Amazon reportedly determined that its drones crashed due a software issue that’s linked to the light rain drizzling at the time the tests were being conducted. 

The company said, however, that the crashes weren’t the “primary reason” why it’s putting its drone deliveries on hold. Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson told Bloomberg that it’s “currently in the process of making software changes to the drone” and that the operational pause is voluntary. After the updates are completed, Amazon still has to secure an approval from the Federal Aviation Administration before it can resume its operations. “Employees at the drone sites, who were told of the action Friday, will continue to be paid during the pause,” Stephenson added. 

In addition to the crashes in December, two MK30 drones collided during another test a few months earlier. Stephenson explained that Amazon expects to see incidents like these during testing and that they help the company improve the service’s safety. Amazon has been sending out non-medical shipments via drones in Texas since 2022 before adding prescription medication a year later. In 2024, Amazon halted drone deliveries in California, but it also launched the service in Phoenix, Arizona. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-puts-its-drone-deliveries-on-hold-following-two-crash-incidents-140026835.html?src=rss

The EU wants to know just how X’s recommendation algorithm works

As part of an ongoing investigation into X, the European Commission has requested documents from the company related to how its recommendation systems work. The European Union’s regulatory arm is particularly interested in any recent changes to the algorithm. The EC said it asked X to provide the information by February 15 as it steps up the Digital Services Act (DSA) probe.

On top of that, regulators asked for access to certain APIs that X provides so it can conduct “direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts.” The Commission has also slapped X with a retention order. This requires the company to retain internal documents related to future changes to the algorithm through the rest of 2025 (or earlier if the investigation wraps up before then).

“Today, we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA,” Henna Virkkunen — the Commission’s executive vice-president for sovereignty, security and democracy — said in a statement on Friday. ”We are committed to ensuring that every platform operating in the EU respects our legislation, which aims to make the online environment fair, safe, and democratic for all European citizens.”

The EC opened the investigation in December 2023 to look into potential violations of the DSA. Companies that are deemed to have breached the law face fines of up to six percent of their global annual revenue.

Thierry Breton, the former European commissioner for internal market, said the bloc was looking into whether X failed to live up to its obligations regarding transparency and tackling illegal content. Possible deceptive design practices are also under the Commission’s microscope.

Regulators stepped up their investigation after X owner Elon Musk publicly backed the Reform party in the UK, as well as the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of an election in February. As Reuters notes, some European politicians have claimed that Musk is meddling in elections. He decried the criticism as an attack on free speech and democracy.

To that end, the Commission is looking into whether X’s algorithms shadowban certain perspectives while amplifying a single narrative. However, it said that Musk is free to speak as he wishes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-eu-wants-to-know-just-how-xs-recommendation-algorithm-works-161000963.html?src=rss

The EU wants to know just how X’s recommendation algorithm works

As part of an ongoing investigation into X, the European Commission has requested documents from the company related to how its recommendation systems work. The European Union’s regulatory arm is particularly interested in any recent changes to the algorithm. The EC said it asked X to provide the information by February 15 as it steps up the Digital Services Act (DSA) probe.

On top of that, regulators asked for access to certain APIs that X provides so it can conduct “direct fact-finding on content moderation and virality of accounts.” The Commission has also slapped X with a retention order. This requires the company to retain internal documents related to future changes to the algorithm through the rest of 2025 (or earlier if the investigation wraps up before then).

“Today, we are taking further steps to shed light on the compliance of X’s recommender systems with the obligations under the DSA,” Henna Virkkunen — the Commission’s executive vice-president for sovereignty, security and democracy — said in a statement on Friday. ”We are committed to ensuring that every platform operating in the EU respects our legislation, which aims to make the online environment fair, safe, and democratic for all European citizens.”

The EC opened the investigation in December 2023 to look into potential violations of the DSA. Companies that are deemed to have breached the law face fines of up to six percent of their global annual revenue.

Thierry Breton, the former European commissioner for internal market, said the bloc was looking into whether X failed to live up to its obligations regarding transparency and tackling illegal content. Possible deceptive design practices are also under the Commission’s microscope.

Regulators stepped up their investigation after X owner Elon Musk publicly backed the Reform party in the UK, as well as the far-right Alternative for Germany party ahead of an election in February. As Reuters notes, some European politicians have claimed that Musk is meddling in elections. He decried the criticism as an attack on free speech and democracy.

To that end, the Commission is looking into whether X’s algorithms shadowban certain perspectives while amplifying a single narrative. However, it said that Musk is free to speak as he wishes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-eu-wants-to-know-just-how-xs-recommendation-algorithm-works-161000963.html?src=rss